Welcome to Gaia! ::

Standing there gawking for a moment as Laven disappeared nearly as quickly as she had brought them both here to this place that was apparently her office. It felt more like a magical science lab, and honestly, as he stood there for a moment, he wasn't sure what to do next. It didn't seem like he'd exactly ******** up, more like he had gotten too eager about following orders for that extra mission.

If anything, he was glad that he had Laven to make sure that he was doing things not only correctly, but that he was staying out of unnecessary trouble. Sighing, he looked around for a moment, looking over the lab equipment and all the crystals and experiments. It made sense why she had said she was a geologist; it looked like she was researching things like that here, even though it wasn't in the way he had taken it to mean back then.

Since this was her space, he wandered only and looked, not touching anything, just in case it might set off a reaction or cause any of her work to be undone or destroyed. Some of the bottles seemed to have active reactions going on, with things floating or fizzing within their containment. There were some notes stacked neatly nearby, but at a quick glance, it was way out of his area of expertise.

The shelves of books were tempting as well, but without her here to ask questions to, he decided against it and poked his head out of her office and looked down the hall. Door after door was closed, and it didn't seem like anything was actively going on.

It was quiet, of course it was, nearly everyone had to be on the battlefield that could be. So he could poke around without having to worry too much about others in the area. Not that he was going to poke into anyone else's office, though, but he was curious if there was a lounge or any sort of cafeteria where he might be able to eat something. As if his stomach wanted to chime in on the thought, it growled and let its opinion be known.

With a sigh, he carefully stepped out of the office and closed the door almost completely behind him, leaving it open just a crack so he could get back in there if he needed to, so he could wait for Laven because, honestly, he wasn't sure how he was going to get out of this place otherwise. It wasn't like he could pop in and out of here like she could; that was something he knew would come with promotions and other powers and responsibilities, something that was in time and not to be taken lightly either.

Each door he passed, he kept quiet just in case someone was around, and he was in a place he wasn't supposed to be. But aside from himself, the only thing he ended up seeing were some of those things called youma, and they were more interested in something else and left him alone as he wandered. There were all sorts of things down here besides the offices, more than he'd thought initially, and it took no small amount of time for him to find some place to sit and something to eat.

It was a training room, from what he could tell, with those dummies used for fighter practice as well as data terminals to review the database, he assumed, for uploading longer reports that might be better managed on something larger than the tablets. Pulling his own out, he took the time to look over some things about this current mission as he chewed thoughtfully on the sandwich he'd gotten. Most of what the recent reports were about went over his head, not just in a mundane sense but in what he knew so far of this job for the Negaverse as well. It seemed bigger than everything, and the way it danced around the topic of outer space made him uneasy.

It wasn't something he thought would be good for Laven either, even if she was more used to this than him. Wasn't electricity bad for her, and if this thing could use it, this wouldn't go well. But there had been so many others, and the acting head of this organization was there so he could respect that. There weren't a lot of corporations or jobs that had someone willing to step up when things were rough, but he also knew that this wasn't normal. It was just easier to be okay with it, so he could afford to live better and get to work towards the life he wanted and to be able to do the research he wanted to do.

None of this had been exactly what he had expected when he'd seen Marissa again, but she hadn't exactly lied either. It would work out; he would make sure it did, even if he needed to put in overtime or come in earlier to make sure he was meeting all his expected work goals. Especially considering that the sandwich he was eating tasted better than the ramen that had been his dinner the whole week before.

Getting up, he made sure to clean his space and wipe any crumbs from the table before sliding the chair back in. Everything was still quiet, aside from what sounded like a few people talking about something somewhere down another hall. Just to be safe, he headed back to Laven's office and sat down. He wasn't sure what to do now. It wasn't like he could just walk out of here, right? At least not from what he'd read so far on the tablet. So with a sigh, he laid down on the floor and stretched out. At least he would be fine here, probably.

Hearing a pop in one of the bottles, he jumped slightly and decided to relocate behind her desk so that he had something between himself and the experiments. Okay, maybe here was better. He just hoped Laven or someone would take him home soon; he didn't exactly know if he liked it down here without somebody he knew alongside him.


Word count: 1,038